Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009254Memento Mori, "To This Favour"
About the Artwork
The Latin term memento mori describes a traditional subject in art that addresses mortality. In Harnett’s example, the extinguished candle, spent hourglass, and skull symbolize death. A quote from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, inscribed on the inside cover of a tattered book, reinforces the theme. It comes from the play’s famed graveyard scene where Hamlet discovers a skull and grimly ponders his beloved Ophelia, ironically unaware that she is already dead. The "paint" in the quote not only refers to Ophelia’s makeup, but also wittily evokes the artifice of Harnett’s picture.
Inscriptions
signed lower right: WMHARNETT / 1879 [WMH in monogram].
Provenance
1965-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio -1965: (Kennedy Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Michael Harnett (American, 1848–1892)
- Date
- 1879
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 77.9 x 98.4 x 8.6 cm (30 11/16 x 38 3/4 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 61.3 x 81.5 cm (24 1/8 x 32 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Accession no.
- 1965.235
More by William Michael Harnett in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009254
Powered by Art Trackers